I Knew It Was Hopeless
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Today on The Encourager's Heart I am sharing an allegorical story that I wrote about 10 years ago about hopelessness and then I will share a testimony that took place in my life shortly after I wrote it. Finally, I will have the honor of introducing a friend, Amanda Finn, who will be adding some final thoughts to the story that I wrote 10 years ago and the overall topic of hopelessness.
It is my desire to bring heart and encouragement to every post that I put out, but I realize that I am 1 person and 1 perspective; God has many children and each of them has their own perspective. Over the life of the blog, I intend to bring other voices in to share their perspective; sometimes it'll be to coauthor a post and sometimes it'll be to write a post by themselves.
In the last 5 years, God has given me many friendships as I discussed in my last post. One of those friendships has been DJ & Amanda Finn, ironically I've always felt closer to DJ and haven't been able to connect with Amanda, but have learned recently that we are actually more alike than we realized; despite DJ telling me so.
Now it’s story time…
There was once a wall created to separate hope from hopelessness and there in the middle of the night ran an unmarried girl; running from her pain, her suffering, her strongholds; the girl, beautiful, thin, long hair with braided ponytails, modest in every way. She runs to the wall because she doesn’t know where else to go. She lives in hopelessness and hopelessness surrounds her; her friends are all named hopelessness; she is always called hopelessness because that’s the only way to live on her side of the wall. She absolutely feels resistance in her soul to be called hopeless; she feels resistance to identify with her surroundings. As she runs to the wall, she cries remembering all the times her friends have told her, “You are one of us, you’ve always been one of us; we accept you and we love you… Come be one of us… stay with us. Where else are you going to go? There is nothing else for you. Just stay here!” But she runs to the wall because a glimmer of hope tells her that their brand of love isn’t what she needs. She runs because their brand of acceptance won’t sustain her.
She hits the wall with her forearms like someone trying to catch their fall, but the wall doesn’t move. She continues to weep as she searches the wall for a possible weakness or loose brick. Finally, she hits her knees in desperation in hopes that maybe the weak spot or loose brick, that will set her free, is somewhere low. She works all night long and the blue hue of nighttime fades from the wall, but the sunrise’s glow forms on it.
You see nobody has told her that hope is on the other side and she herself doesn’t know hope is on the other side, but she scratches and claws, and pounds and digs. Finally with a face that screams, “I’ve been crying”, she turns, rising to her feet, and faces the rising sun and then slowly slides down the wall, finding herself sitting she cries aloud, “I knew it was hopeless” and puts her face in between her knees with her hands interlocked around her head, she once more wept the words into her skirt, “I knew it was hopeless.”
Preston’s comments: I wrote this story in March of 2010, 7 1/2 years before I started attending True Life Church in Joshua, TX. At the time I intentionally never finished the story. As it would turn out, in the 6 years leading up to me leaving the church I had been reborn in, and going to True Life, I found myself in some pretty dark days. There were days when I’d go to church, and nobody would be there, but I’d try to pray. Every word felt like it had an anvil attached to it and after 5 minutes, I’d give up and leave. There was two weeks where I was tormented with a spirit of suicide; I remember when it started, I was at work, and I remember staring at the Alsbury/I-35 bridge in Burleson, TX and just wanting to end it all. I’m a child of God; I'm filled with His spirit, but unbeknownst to me I have a spirit of suicide tormenting me and I’m just done with life.
Thankfully, the creator of life was not done with me. For 6 years, from 2011 until 2017, God dealt with me about going to a different church, but I was convinced it was the voice of the devil telling me to do so. Finally, in October of 2017, I found a 6-month-old church that felt like home within 15-minutes of me walking in. A man whom I’ve become friends with, gave me a tour of the campus that had been several different churches over it’s 100+ year evolution and history. I remember walking the halls and seeing the bones of it’s potential, but in my spirit rang the Danny Gokey song “Hope in Front of Me”.
After suffering multiple difficult circumstances from age 4 to 14, suffering from depression from age 9 to 27, and dealing with difficult circumstances while filled with the Holy Ghost from 2011 to 2017, I know what it feels like to feel like you're on the wrong side of the wall and hope is just merely a fantasy.
To quote the lyric from the song “Way Maker”, “Even when I don’t feel it your working, even when I don’t see it your working”
Psalms 147:6 (NRSVA) “The Lord lifts the downtrodden and casts the wicked to the ground.”
Psalms 43:5 “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.”
Proverbs 13:12 “Hope deferred makes the heart sick”
On a Wednesday night in March of 2019, my pastor’s wife spoke about identity crisis being anything that shifts your reality away from your expectations and you’re forced to choose how you wish to identify yourself; it is also in those moments that we can find hopelessness. Perhaps the hopelessness you face is quick and fleeting or perhaps it lingers; it probably depends on exactly what you hoped for and how much you were invested in that expected end.
Proverbs 23:7 “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.”
Hopelessness, much like depression, is something that if you’re battling it, you do not need to battle it alone. God has surrounded me with godly friends and a uniquely awesome church family, that genuinely does what the body of Christ is called to do; we rally around each other and pray for each other, loving each other with Christ’s love. Our church also offers a Celebrate Recovery program to come alongside people and to help them with hurts, habits, & hang-ups, and you do not have to attend our church to benefit from the program. Celebrate Recovery is offered worldwide, and you can find a location near you.
If you find yourself in a position of hopelessness, I can’t say I know exactly what you’re going through, because your circumstances may be different from mine, but ask God to help you by bringing someone into your life, that you can bear your soul to. Whether it’s a Christian counselor or someone in your church, there is beauty in bearing one another’s burdens.
I Knew It Was Hopeless: The Conclusion
By
Amanda Finn
She knows hopelessness so well, even the added side effects of it. She’s so keenly aware of hopelessness because she’s once felt hope. She clothes herself daily with the garment of hopelessness each time she speaks those death-defying words “I knew it was hopeless.” Feeling physically defeated, she sits slumped up against this wall of hopelessness. She lifts her head, wipes her tears, and whispers under her breath, “I give up.” As those three words left her lips a calming breeze blew through, and she began to feel a warmth flow through her body. She had finally surrendered. She believed this entire time that hopelessness had a grip on her and in this moment, she realized she had a grip on hopelessness. She gives all her strength to the feelings of hopelessness. She then thought, have I idolized my past hopes to the point of hopelessness? Consumed by moments in her life where she felt hopeful, she was unable to move into her future. She sat awestruck at this revelation. It was as if something in her mind unlocked and she felt a sense of freedom. She boldly stood to her feet and while face to face with “hopelessness” she began to speak to it, rather than physically fighting it. She rebuked the words of death that she and her “friends” spoke over her. These “friends” are the spirit of discouragement. This spirit of discouragement snuck in under the façade of encouragement. “You’re one of us” “you’ve always been one of us” “we accept you and we love you.” The wall that created the separation between hope and hopelessness was created in her mind and built up by her words. You see the city and wall of her own hopelessness were at the hands of her own making… She was the creator of it, but God had to make her see that He is the author of hope, and by her reaching her rock bottom moment and saying, “I give up”, God was able to bring her out of her hopelessness and back into fellowship with Him.
“Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” Speak life. Speak Jesus.
“The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.” Romans 8:6
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” Romans 15:13
Preston’s final thoughts: Amanda & I put our hope in God and we hope this story and testimony will bless you and that you too will find hope in Jesus Christ.
